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S4 #95

CXH4

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Original poster
Apr 18, 2016
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I was unable to get the resolution to 1440p @flacman due to me not having the proper adapter for my monitor (No HDMI so I used my tv), however, I put all the settings on the highest available setting on GTA V, The results were great, I never dropped below 60 FPS. I had the GPU at 100% power consumption and the boost clock at stock speed, for about an hour of testing, but felt the Z4 and thought it felt a bit too hot, so I bumped down the power consumption to 80% and completely removed the boost clock, and under load the Z4 does not heat up too much. Right now I don't have the equipment to measure the thermals of the Z4, but hopefully I'm able to get that on Friday. So the results of that test went well, and the overall performance of any of the hardware hasn't really seemed to be bottlenecked at all, even when reducing the clocks, voltages, and power consumption. Despite all of these things, it's been performing far better than my first build, even on less power. So I am overall happy with my results even if it may not be the most powerful machine. :)
 

CXH4

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Original poster
Apr 18, 2016
136
87
Which riser is it? Sometimes reseating it helps.

If you don't mind, could you measure these dimensions on the card?



So that's length from the outside face of the rear bracket to the furthest part of the card.

And height from the bottom of the PCIe connector to both the top of the power connector and the furthest top part of the card.

The length of the card from the edge of the card to the bracket is 176.2125mm
The height of the card from the PCIe connector to the furthest top is 112.7125mm
The height of the card from the PCIe connctor to the top of the power connector is the exact same height, 112.7125mm
The width of the card including the shroud is 38.1mm
Those are the overall dimensions of the card, if you find any errors in this please let me know.
 

jeshikat

Jessica. Wayward SFF.n Founder
Silver Supporter
Feb 22, 2015
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Those are the overall dimensions of the card, if you find any errors in this please let me know.

Thanks! I wouldn't know if there are any errors, I'm gathering measurements from people who actually own these cards to check the manufacturer's specs for errors :p
 
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flacman

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Feb 23, 2016
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Thanks @CXH4 for doing some tests.

Hopefully with my 6700T, the PicoPSU won't be as stressed and I won't have to disable anything.
I read some early reviews of the RX 470 this morning and the idle/non-gaming power consumption is much too high compared to Nvidia.

I have a G-Sync (1st gen ROG Swift) monitor with my current 2600K/980-Ti desktop, so almost imperative for me to stay locked to Nvidia for as long as possible. :)
 
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CXH4

SFF Lingo Aficionado
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Apr 18, 2016
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After doing some more stress testing (marathon gaming really [5+ Hours]) on my PC, I was finally able to get the computer to crash. However this was not the Z4 that crashed, the power brick gave out instead. I'm assuming this is from over heating, because the power brick was very warm to the touch, I could be wrong. I really would like to look into externally powering the machine with just the power brick and not a PSU, but I don't know which one's are good for the job. On the other hand, I also bought a 160XT as a back up and I had stressed the system for not quite as long with the same settings for a few hours(with the power brick that comes with the 160XT), I noticed that it also got considerably hot, but it did not crash. Before I decided to call it a night with the testing I tweaked the GPU and CPU both to 60% maximum power consumption, I don't know if it has actually made much of a difference in gaming performance, but the external PSU seemed a bit cooler. So from what I can tell, the bottleneck in my system is my external PSU, also my inability to set a locked 60 FPS without the Asus GPU tweak lol
 
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flacman

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Feb 23, 2016
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You're lucky you can test with a GTX 1060. There's barely any stock in Australia to start with.

I've received most of my kit and have lightly tested the 160XT + 6700T with web browsing, application installs.
Normal power draw (as per CPUID HWMonitor) is around 16 watts (min) to 40 watts (max).

Temps hovering between 26-28 degrees C using ID-Cooling VC45, Noctua NF-A9x14 PWM and Arctic Silver grease.
Looking closely, I may have to tighten one of the screws (off by 1-2mm compared to remaining 3) on the heatsink mount, but looks like it survived YouTube.
 
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CXH4

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Original poster
Apr 18, 2016
136
87
You're lucky you can test with a GTX 1060. There's barely any stock in Australia to start with.

I've received most of my kit and have lightly tested the 160XT + 6700T with web browsing, application installs.
Normal power draw (as per CPUID HWMonitor) is around 16 watts (min) to 40 watts (max).

Temps hovering between 26-28 degrees C using ID-Cooling VC45, Noctua NF-A9x14 PWM and Arctic Silver grease.
Looking closely, I may have to tighten one of the screws (off by 1-2mm compared to remaining 3) on the heatsink mount, but looks like it survived YouTube.

Well that's making me consider the 6700T despite me being a bit short on cash. Have you benchmarked the CPU with Prime95 (Or any other benchmark) yet @flacman ?

As for the 1060 I wish I could've gotten an ASUS mini itx 1060 if those existed currently. The 1060's were in stock last week, but perhaps that was for the US only? Or only for a short time?
 
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flacman

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Feb 23, 2016
128
61
Well that's making me consider the 6700T despite me being a bit short on cash. Have you benchmarked the CPU with Prime95 (Or any other benchmark) yet @flacman ?

As for the 1060 I wish I could've gotten an ASUS mini itx 1060 if those existed currently. The 1060's were in stock last week, but perhaps that was for the US only? Or only for a short time?

Once I get back home (2 weeks), I plan to remount the HSF and do some testing using XTU.
Spent a lot of time on the weekend trying to figure out why the system/motherboard initialization hangs for about 10 seconds prior to booting to Windows. The 950 Pro is mighty fast in booting the system when the logo comes up (AS SSD reports 2.2 GB/s read, 1.4 GB/s write) - once I manage to reinstall the OS as GPT and disable CSM, perhaps I'll get a 2.5 GB/s read score.

Seeing the leaked performance benchmarks for the AMD Radeon RX 460 depresses me slightly. Was kind of hoping (pipe dream) for a GTX 960 consuming less than 75 watts. Maybe a future GTX 1050 (Ti) may be a better fit (~GTX 970 performance at 85-100W peak) for the system.

As for your system - if the Dell 330W brick is crashing, have you considered sourcing a HP/Voodoo Firebird 350W adapter?
 

CXH4

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Original poster
Apr 18, 2016
136
87
Once I get back home (2 weeks), I plan to remount the HSF and do some testing using XTU.
Spent a lot of time on the weekend trying to figure out why the system/motherboard initialization hangs for about 10 seconds prior to booting to Windows. The 950 Pro is mighty fast in booting the system when the logo comes up (AS SSD reports 2.2 GB/s read, 1.4 GB/s write) - once I manage to reinstall the OS as GPT and disable CSM, perhaps I'll get a 2.5 GB/s read score.

Seeing the leaked performance benchmarks for the AMD Radeon RX 460 depresses me slightly. Was kind of hoping (pipe dream) for a GTX 960 consuming less than 75 watts. Maybe a future GTX 1050 (Ti) may be a better fit (~GTX 970 performance at 85-100W peak) for the system.

As for your system - if the Dell 330W brick is crashing, have you considered sourcing a HP/Voodoo Firebird 350W adapter?

I would get a Firebird 350W adapter if I knew where I could get one both reliably and at a good price, it would be nice to have the extra wattage. Especially if a new Pico PSU comes out that is similar in size to the Z4/160XT.

Also, I wish I had that type of speed, I didn't want to spend too much so I just went with a modest HDD lol

I was also disappointed by the line of GPU's that came out. I was expecting that at least either AMD or NVIDIA would have HBM2, I believe this would've given the GPU's a few advantages, one being less power consumption (correct me if I'm wrong), and the other being better performance. It might have even put the RX460 in the range between the 960/970, what I believe is probably the entry into a mid range gaming PC at a budget price. I really would've considered it if that was the case, but perhaps it just needs updated drivers similarly to the 480.
 

CXH4

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Original poster
Apr 18, 2016
136
87
Finally got a watt meter and measured the total power draw of my system, the system at full load with 90% power to the CPU and 60% to the GPU averaged around 140 watts. Both the CPU and GPU at 60% power consumption measured around 130 watts. I put the system under load using Prime95+Furmark, I don't believe that these results are bad, but perhaps I can bring this wattage lower in order to save up on power and give the GPU more headroom, perhaps I will invest in a 6700T, if it becomes later in the year, I may even see if I can pick up a 7700T if and when those exist.
 

flacman

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Feb 23, 2016
128
61
@CXH4 how loud does your Zotac 1060 get? Read on another thread here that it super loud compared to the EVGA ones.

Zotac 1060 comes to about $370 AUD shipped for me vs. the EVGA 1060s ($410 AUD) which are out of stock with no ETA.
 

CXH4

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Original poster
Apr 18, 2016
136
87
@CXH4 how loud does your Zotac 1060 get? Read on another thread here that it super loud compared to the EVGA ones.

Zotac 1060 comes to about $370 AUD shipped for me vs. the EVGA 1060s ($410 AUD) which are out of stock with no ETA.

The Zotac sounds pretty silent to me at 40%, but this may be due to the fact that its settings have been tweaked to not consume as much power so it would not need much cooling. So far I haven't really heard it over my CPU fan (which is set high, and it is loud I'm not going to lie), but when I turn on the system and both the fans are going at their lowest (I believe the CPU fan is set to 40% or 50% speed) it's pretty damn quiet in my opinion. I'm not really bothered by the sounds because my first computer from 2010 was A LOT louder. Hopefully soon GPU's may get kinetic/convection cooling; I saw that CoolChip had shown an image saying they would be releasing the coolers soon, I plan on picking one of those up. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be stockpiled with computer components eventually lol
 
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CXH4

SFF Lingo Aficionado
Original poster
Apr 18, 2016
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87
It has been quite sometime since I have updated this build, but it's just about complete!

Here are the updated specs:

• Mini-Box 160XT Pico-PSU
• Mini-Box 192 Watt External Power Brick
• Intel i7 6700 CPU
• 16GB DDR4 RAM
• Asus H110I-PLUS CSM Motherboard
• 1TB HDD
• Silverstone NT07-115X CPU Cooler
• Zotac GTX 1060
• Black S4 Mini chassis [#95]

Lastly a view of the setup as well!